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YELLEN’S DULL DEBUT – Ben White writes for the hometown paper: “Janet Yellen was boring. And that’s exactly what she wanted to be. The newly installed Federal Reserve chair, in her first big policy meeting and news conference, gently nudged the central bank away from its extraordinary easy-money policies and toward a more normal footing in a way that only mildly upset markets, which sank a bit on the slightly more hawkish tone. Yellen, the first female chair in the Fed’s history, will also probably avoid much partisan criticism from either side following a performance in which she expertly wrapped some fairly significant policy changes in the kind of soothingly gauzy language that is the hallmark of successful central bankers.

-- “Indeed, Yellen’s deep experience as Fed vice chair and president of the San Francisco Fed showed up in a performance in which she was by turns wonky, folksy and forceful about her views on the economy. She said she felt the “weight” of leading the world’s most important central bank and plans to do the job in much the same way as her predecessor, Ben Bernanke. ‘He had a very good agenda and it’s one I shared,’ she said.” http://politi.co/1fJoXUF

-- The Wall Street Journal had a much more dramatic take in its A1 lead: “Yellen’s Debut Rattles Markets: Wary Investors Seize on New Fed Chief’s Mixed Message on Pace of Rate Increases,” By Jon Hilsenrath and Victoria McGrane: “Investors bristled after Janet Yellen emerged from her first meeting as Federal Reserve chairwoman with some unsettling signals about the central bank's outlook for short-term interest rates.” http://on.wsj.com/1iG2Jbu

FLIGHT 370: AUSTRALIA SPOTS POSSIBLE DEBRIS FROM MISSING PLANE -- Scott McDonald and Kristen Gelineau report from Kuala Lumpur: “Four military search planes were dispatched Thursday to determine whether two large objects bobbing in a remote part of the Indian Ocean are debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight. The search for the objects could take time and Australian authorities said one of the planes was unable to locate the debris through clouds and rain, but that other planes would continue the hunt. One of the objects spotted by satellite imagery was 24 meters (almost 80 feet) in length and the other was 5 meters (15 feet). There could be other objects in the area, a four-hour flight from Australia’s southwestern coast, said John Young, manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s emergency response division.” http://bo.st/1g41T80

HUDDLE FIRST LOOK: SHUSTER LAUNCHES FIRST TV ATTACK AD AGAINST TEA-PARTY CHALLENGER – House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster isn’t taking any chances. Though far ahead in the polls, the Pennsylvania Republican will go up on TV today with an ad portraying primary challenger Art Halvorson as a “hypocrite”: He’s campaigned against federal subsidies yet his farms in Iowa and Pennsylvania have received more than $500,000 in farm subsidies, a narrator in the ad says. The opening scene portrays Halvorson, a real estate investor and retired Coast Guard captain, as a farmer in overalls. The combined cable and broadcast buy will be $400,000 for the month, the Shuster campaign said, and the spot can be seen in the Altoona/Johnstown market, in addition to a considerable cable buy throughout all of PA-09. The Shuster camp will also roll out a new website today: http://hypocritehalvorson.com/Watch the ad here:http://youtu.be/3GYLajGEUCI

-- Halvorson reiterated that he’s opposed to subsidies and called the attacks desperate: "Today, Mr. Shuster attacked my position on farm subsidies, claiming that I have indirectly benefited from thousands of dollars in government-mandated corn and soy subsidies paid to a farmer to whom I rent a property in Iowa. It is an act of desperation to attack me simply because I own farmland. And this is why I'm running - I want to get big government out of our lives and off of our farms, even if it means that it will indirectly affect my own self-interest. I believe we must oppose subsidies, because they will harm family farms in the long run. This is called leadership. It's called returning control to the people."

-- You might recall that Halvorson called 911 on a tracker after a meeting at POLITICO world headquarters last December. Shuster denied sending the tracker: http://politi.co/1gCp1pw

FIRST LOOK II -- THE AMERICAN ACTION FORUMis marking the 4th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act with a new comprehensive ACA Timeline -- the latest resource from their ACA-2-Z (“ACA to Z”) blog, to go along with the ACA Dictionary. The interactive timeline features hundreds of entries and tells the story of the Affordable Care Act from its initial inception to passage to implementation. The timeline also features videos, images, past headlines, and links to outside content. Take a look back the history of the Affordable Care Act here: http://timeline.aca2z.com

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GOOD THURSDAY MORNING, MARCH 20, 2014, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of all the action on Capitol Hill. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to swong@politico.com. If you don’t already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC.

TRANSITIONS – LEANNE GIBBS, a longtime aide to former Rep. Mike Pence and former Sen. Richard Lugar, has founded Fresh New Start, a charity to support young cancer widows like her. LeAnne lost her husband, Francis Gibbs, in May 2013 after an arduous fight with colon cancer. Francis was also a long-time Hill aide to Reps. Ander Crenshaw and Connie Mack. www.freshnewstart.org.

-- LESLEY LOPEZ, a former Hill staffer, has been named communications director for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which is responsible for winning state legislative seats and Democratic legislative majorities across the country. Lopez had been communications director for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and served as director of Surrogate Communication for the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. She’s also worked as a journalists for ABC, BBC, CNN, America's Most Wanted and Eurovision.

-- RYAN STENGER, chief of staff to Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio) for the past three years, has been hired as director of government affairs for Canton, Ohio-based steel manufacturer Timken Co., Legistorm reports. “Although Stenger has not yet filed as a lobbyist, recent lobbying filings show that Timken lobbied Congress on issues related to the Affordable Care Act, the Employee Workplace Freedom Act and the Pension Protection Act. Stenger came to the Hill in 2010 after working as a managing partner for the Ohio Political Network LLC.” http://bit.ly/1d3eWHa

-- CORRY MARSHALL, who was previously served as Gibbs’s legislative director, has replaced Stenger as chief of staff, his office said.

IN BERKELEY, RAND RIPS INTEL COMMUNITY – Carla Marinucci reports for the San Francisco Chronicle: “Cheered by a youthful audience in one of the country's most liberal enclaves, Sen. Rand Paul - one of the Republican Party's leading contenders for the White House in 2016 - delivered a scathing rebuke to the U.S. intelligence community Wednesday, calling it ‘drunk with power.’ ‘I don't know about you, but I'm worried,’ the Kentucky senator told 400 people who filled a hall at UC Berkeley's International House. ‘If the CIA is spying on Congress, who exactly can or will stop them?’

-- “Paul's comments come one week after Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., took to the Senate floor to accuse the CIA of illegal computer searches intended to hinder her Intelligence Committee's probe of alleged U.S. torture of terrorism suspects. Paul said Feinstein's allegations had shaken Washington. ‘I look into the eyes of senators and I think I see real fear,’ he said. ‘I think I perceive fear of an intelligence community drunk with power, unrepentant and uninclined to relinquish power.’

-- “He said he had told Feinstein, ‘‘Great speech, everybody is talking about it.' I hope she will stand up, not let the CIA push her around, not let the NSA (National Security Agency) push her around.’ … In response to Feinstein's allegations, Paul said, the Senate should appoint a select committee – ‘bipartisan, independent’ and with full investigative powers - to probe spying abuses.” http://bit.ly/1l5gfbB

-- PAUL also touched on race, saying Obama, the nation’s first African American president, should be more wary of spying given its past history of eavesdropping on Martin Luther King Jr. Jeremy Peters in the NYT: http://nyti.ms/1pey31k

-- THE NEW YORKER’S STEVE COLL, with a fun cartoon of Feinstein: “Regrettably, the imbroglio may draw the media and the public into complex details of a Washington procedural, in which, as in a ‘House of Cards’ plot, there is presumed to be no moral center. There is one here, however. It concerns the soundness of American representative government. Can the C.I.A., after a decade of fat budgets and swaggering prerogative, adjust to emboldened congressional oversight? Can Congress provide such oversight? And can the American people at last have the facts about the Bush Administration’s embrace of torture as national policy, carried out in their name?” http://nyr.kr/1dcr5Kc

TOYOTA LIED TO CONGRESS, HIT WITH RECORD $1.2 BILLION FINE – Danielle Douglas and Michael A. Fletcher report for the Washington Post: “Toyota Motor lied to regulators, Congress and the public for years about the sudden acceleration of its vehicles, a deception that caused the world’s largest automaker on Wednesday to be hit with a $1.2 billion Justice Department fine. Prosecutors say Toyota’s efforts to conceal the problem and protect its corporate image led to a series of fatalities that could have been prevented. The settlement, which amounts to more than a third of Toyota’s 2013 profit, is being called the largest criminal penalty imposed on a car company in U.S. history. Toyota says in the settlement that it misled Americans by making deceptive statements about the safety problems that caused its vehicles to speed up uncontrollably, a stark admission for a company that has built its brand on safety and reliability. …

-- “The deal is a victory for the government and could serve as a model for a case against General Motors, which is under investigation by Congress, safety regulators and federal prosecutors for taking more than a decade to issue a recall for an ignition-switch problem it has linked to 31 accidents and 12 deaths. Toyota Motor lied to regulators, Congress and the public for years about the sudden acceleration of its vehicles, a deception that caused the world’s largest automaker on Wednesday to be hit with a $1.2 billion Justice Department fine.” http://wapo.st/1pezFYL

BOEHNER PANS SENATE BIPARTISAN JOBLESS AID BILL – Burgess Everett has the story for POLITICO: “Citing an analysis by a group of state unemployment insurance directors, Boehner said the Senate’s legislation likely doesn’t meet House standards that a jobless aid package be fiscally responsible and help create jobs. The speaker’s comments dampen any prospect that the Senate’s five-month, retroactive unemployment insurance extension will become law, even if the bill passes the Senate. … Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who has led Senate negotiations along with Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), said through a spokesperson that he would try to work to assuage Boehner’s concerns but was disappointed with Wednesday’s events.” http://politi.co/1gK19EZ

GRAHAM GOES TO BAT FOR ADELSON – Anna Palmer and Burgess Everett report for POLITICO: “Sen. Lindsey Graham is giving a little help to his friend — Republican mega donor Sheldon Adelson. Graham is expected to introduce a bill to ban Internet gambling as soon as next week, according to sources working on the issue. … Adelson has not been a long-time Graham supporter, but in 2013 he and his wife Miriam — who have spread their money widely among Republicans — cut checks for $15,600 in campaign contributions to Graham.” http://politi.co/1peB95d

WEDNESDAY’S TRIVIA WINNER – Lucas White, studying at Washington and Lee School of Law, was the first to correctly answer that it was John Adams who was the first U.S. president not to attend the inauguration of his successor, Thomas Jefferson.

TODAY’S TRIVIA – Jim Casto has today’s question: With the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines jet dominating the news, which U.S. president was the first to travel on official business by airplane? The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day’s Huddle. Email me at swong@politico.com.

GET HUDDLE emailed to your Blackberry, iPhone or other mobile device each morning. Just enter your email address where it says “Sign Up.” http://www.politico.com/huddle/

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